*

Millions of eggs destroyed in Brazil

*

Several countries including China banned chicken imports

from

Brazil

*

Sample from a duck found on a non-commercial farm being

tested

for bird flu

By Debora Ely

MONTENEGRO, Brazil, May 18 (Reuters) - Officials and

chicken farmers in Brazil have stepped up sanitary controls

close to where the country's first case of avian influenza was

found on a commercial farm, while racing to track the virus to

stop its spread.

Brazil is the world's largest chicken exporter. News on

Friday of the first case of highly pathogenic avian influenza

found on a commercial farm in Montenegro, in Rio Grande do Sul

state, triggered trade bans for Brazilian chicken by China and

the European Union, as well as fellow Latin American countries

Mexico and Argentina, among others.

Brazilian authorities at the state and federal level have

scrambled to prevent bird flu from spreading. On Saturday, the

government of Minas Gerais state said it destroyed 450 metric

tons of eggs from Rio Grande do Sul.

Eggs from the affected farm were traced to locations in

Minas Gerais, Parana and Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's agriculture

ministry said, adding they would be destroyed.

Some 1.7 million eggs have been destroyed in Rio Grande do

Sul, according to the state's department of agriculture.

"We don't know what's going to happen, if there's going to

be stagnation, if we're going to keep producing - we don't know

anything," said Celso Zweibricker, 65, a chicken farmer in

Montenegro.

With 76,000 birds to protect, Zweibricker stepped up

sanitary controls, denying access to visitors and insisting that

chicken-feed deliverers could only enter the site with clean

boots.

"We don't want anyone to come in," Zweibricker said.

The outbreak of highly infectious bird flu that started in

2022 has devastated production of chicken and eggs in the United

States, leading to the culling of millions of poultry birds, and

has spread to dairy farms across the U.S.

On Saturday, teams from Vibra Foods, a Brazilian operation

backed by Tyson Foods ( TSN ) which runs the farm where bird flu

was detected, buried waste that had first been incinerated to

prevent the spread of the virus.

The virus killed around 15,000 birds and the farm culled an

additional 2,000. Vibra Foods did not respond to requests for

comment.

Brazil's agriculture ministry and Rio Grande do Sul's

department of agriculture created a task force in Montenegro to

prevent the virus spreading, with officials visiting 524

properties within a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius of the farm

where the first case was found.

Teams from the ministry and state department, with support

from the military police, will set up a total of seven

disinfection barriers close to the farm, washing passing

vehicles with water and disinfectant, the department of

agriculture in Rio Grande do Sul said.

On Saturday, a sample taken from a duck on a non-commercial

farm suspected of having bird flu was collected and sent for

testing, Rosane Collares, director of animal health surveillance

and defense for the Rio Grande do Sul's department of

agriculture, told Reuters.

"Our goal is to eliminate this outbreak and return to the

previous condition as quickly as possible," Collares said.